A few notes about how I've cataloged the following: Directors are labeled under their most commonly known name (example: Aristide Massaccesi will be filed under Joe D'Amato). Films are listed under their most commonly known titles with other common alternate titles in parenthesis (example: City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell)).

Monday, November 19, 2012

When films are usually credited with more than two writers,
there’s a consensus that something is fishy. The idea that a script needs three
or four or sometimes even five writers usually doesn’t bode well for the
quality of the film. Generally it is believed that the more writers the film
has to its name, the more troubled the process was of getting it ready to
shoot. I mean, just look at something like Armageddon:
here is a film that many would agree is one of the absolute worst films of the
‘90s; it had more than five writers. Lethal
Weapon 4 supposedly had 12 writers; The
Flintstones – rumors have it – had over 60 (!) writers take a stab at the
screenplay; and Pirates of the Caribbean:
On Stranger Tides – one of the worst films in recent memory – had more than
four writers to its name (some simply getting credit for “adapting” due to WGA
rules). The point? Well, in 1982 Sydney Pollack would try his hand at making
sense of the oft-bounced around script for what would become Tootsie. Everything about the film’s
pre-production would point towards it being a failure; however, Pollack – the
old pro – would piece together the scraps that were left from all of the
previous writers who tried their hand at making the script work. Prior to its
release, there was no way of predicting that Tootsie would be the second highest grossing film at the box-office
(behind E.T.) and would be one of
Pollack’s most popular and successful films.

Based on the play Would
I Lie to You? by Don Maguire, eventual star (and major proponent of the
film) Dustin Hoffman came onto the project after Charles Evans (Robert’s
brother) had bought the rights. When Hoffman came on board, he immediately
handed the project off to a Who’s Who of comedy writers that included Elaine
May and Barry Levinson. When Pollack came on board, he changed the script (no
surprise there since, as we’ve established throughout this retrospective, this
is what Pollack does), piecing together the parts he liked with what he thought
needed to be emphasized. No doubt Pollack valued the things in the script that
he values in all of his movies, but Tootsie
– aesthetically – feels like the comedic kin of The Way We Were; it’s a call back to the kind of Old Hollywood film
that Pollack had so much admiration for.

The plot concerns itself with struggling actor Michael
Dorsey (Hoffman) who is out of work and is told by his agent George (Pollack,
in a role he begrudgingly accepted thanks to Hoffman’s dogged pestering that he
take the role) that he’s too much of a pain to work with. Directors all across
the city don’t want to work with him, and so George has to have it out with
Michael that he isn’t fighting for him because too damn unemployable. This
leads to George and Michael having a back-and-forth argument in his office
about how difficult he is to work with. Michael’s reputation precedes him as
George reminds him about a commercial he did where he was too dedicated to the
role of a tomato, going as far as giving notes to the director. The argument climaxes as Michael tells George
that the director was crazy because he “plays the hell out of vegetables.” That
final zinger is one of the best of the film and perfectly punctuates the best
scene in the movie. Pollack and Hoffman’s back and forth was rooted in real
life tension between the two, and that real life tension helps the scene become
the real show stealer.

So, getting back to the plot: Michael accompanies his fellow
out-of-work, stressed-out best friend Sandy (Teri Garr) to an audition for a
soap opera called “Southwest General.” She doesn’t get the role, but Michael
gets an idea: he’ll don make-up and a wig and get in a dress and try out
himself as a sassy Southern woman name Dorothy Michaels. The film from there (predictably
but never in a non-interesting way) moves through various sitcom situations as
Michael as Dorothy gets in all kinds of close-calls, wacky misunderstandings,
and zany situations. Some work like the relationship Michael forms as Dorothy
with fellow co-star Julie (Jessica Lange, who won an Oscar for her role), and
how he has to learn – for the first time – to really begin to love a woman by
understanding her rather than just trying objectifying her. Admittedly, this
bit of social commentary dates the movie significantly, but it’s still a sweet
story. And Lange and Hoffman are great in their scenes together – almost as “can’t-take-your-eyes-off-the-screen”
watchable as previous Pollack pairings like Streisand/Redford or Fonda/Redford
or Streep/Redford. When the film doesn’t work, it’s mostly in the zany aspects.
Charles Durning is great as Julia’s dad, but the scenes surrounding him and
Dorothy are predictable and tired even though the performances suggest we
should think something different. The writing just isn’t as sharp in those
scenes.

Like those screwball comedies from the ’30s and ‘40s that
Pollack so greatly admired, the director does a great job of utilizing his
supporting cast for big laughs, specifically Dabney Coleman as Ron Carlisle.
Carlisle is the sexist director of the soap opera, and his yo-yo like reactions
to all of Dorothy’s ad-libs are hilarious. He hates having actors that have a
thought in their head, but he loves the ratings that Michael’s (as Dorothy)
performance as the hospital administrator is giving his tawdry daytime soap
opera. It’s a great balancing act by Coleman, and along with Pollack, is one of
the reasons the film flies by as you watch it.

Tootsie is like
comfort food for me; I often return to this simple, endearing comedy when I can
think of nothing else to watch. It reminds me of a little of the comedies by
Sturges or Hawks or Cukor. Pollack was quite fond of these filmmakers and the
classic Hollywood system they worked in; we often see Pollack trying to reach
for that simple aesthetic and tone in his pictures because it’s what interested
him most – this idea of the loss of innocence found in the films he grew up
with. It’s why it’s easy to say that there’s nothing in particular that jumps
out at us when we look at Pollack’s career – or when someone says they’re going
to do a retrospective on him; I’m sure there many people just kind of shrug at
this project of mine – yet there’s something to be said about the consistency
and workman-like way Pollack churned out these films indebted to the old
Hollywood style. When one tries to deconstruct Pollack, there are only a few
things they’re likely to find, and I think that’s because Pollack preferred it
that way: Simple stories involving characters with simple motivations.

When comparing the thematic motifs of Tootsie with Pollack’s other films, we see some similarities even
though this was the first time the director worked in the comedy genre. We know
Pollack was fond of male/female dynamics – they were the crucial metaphor to
understanding opposing worldviews – specifically in regards to relationships.
Here, Pollack does something a little different in that he implements the same
conflict that he has in other films but does it with just one person: Michael/Dorothy.
It’s interesting because Pollack is very much making a movie that he’s made
before, but he’s also flipping the conventions of the romantic comedy and
making it about something more. We also know that Pollack knew how to work with
big actors. Hoffman, allegedly, was a thorn in Pollack’s side on the set;
however, Pollack was still able to rein him in enough and get a great
performance from not just his leading man but from the entire supporting cast
(which includes a great snarky performance from an un-credited Bill Murray as
Michael’s roommate).

Another favorite of Pollack’s: the ambiguous ending.
One of the things Pollack wanted to change about the ending was that it was
more about Michael’s epiphany regarding his relationships with women rather
than the success of his Dorothy character and the revelation that Dorothy was
really a man. So, Pollack still gets his ambiguous ending in; however, unlike
his previous dramas, the ending in Tootsie
– although ambiguous which is not what Hollywood or audiences would have preferred
– is still a happy one regardless of whether know that Michael and Julia are going
to end up as more than friends. What I appreciate about Pollack, and in in
particular what he does in this film, is that he’s never concerned with the
“will they/won’t they” dynamic. For Pollack, it goes much deeper than that;
it’s journey – a necessary and cyclical one but one where the protagonist
returns to where they started a little wiser and more self-aware – not just a
fluffy little romantic comedy/drama for Pollack. He’s interested in the arc
these characters go on. So, with Tootsie
the wacky, cross-dressing comedy, it seems that he’s kind of sneaking these
other elements that were so prominent in his previous films so that we become
not enamored with whether Michael will get the girl but whether or not he
actually learns something about his relationships with women in general.

And so even though there may not be a lot to deconstruct
with Tootsie that we haven’t already
covered with Pollack’s other films, and even though certain scenes like the
magazine montage date the film, there’s a lot to love and admire about the
film. If you allow it to, Tootsie can
work its charm on you and win you over. It’s arguably Pollack’s broadest film –
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is the
only thing I can think of that would be as overt – but it was also a huge
success with audiences (and critics) and is one of Pollack’s most successful
films. It’s a pleasant change of pace
for the director of such languid, deliberate films that often test the patience
of the audience. Tootsie is smart and
fast-paced and filled with some of Pollack’s strongest scenes as a director. It’s
a shame that his next film, Out of Africa,
is the one that won Pollack Oscars for Directing and Producing because I think
that Tootsie is ten times the film
that his more serious “prestige” period piece is. But we’ll get to that film
next time.

1 comments

I greatly enjoy this movie, actually it´s one of my all time fave comedies. Great actors elevate the script and who could ever forget that shot when we first see Dorothy walking down the crowded street. Great summation of the film and I look forward to reading about Out of Africa, another fave of mine...though perhaps a little bit of a guilty pleasure.Anyways, directors like Pollack are undervalued and almost extinct in the studio system today when it´s all about the BIG movies, nothing wrong with that but the "smaller" movies and directors tend to get a bit lost.

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